The list of winners of the 2012 Pioneer Press Treasure Hunt got smaller Friday.
The newspaper removed the names of four of the five initial winners after one of them admitted to accessing the song version of clue No. 9 hours before it was posted to TwinCities.com.
That means Lange Wallgren of Osseo is the sole winner, earning a check for $5,000 for turning in the medallion and a set of published clues early Feb. 1. He found the treasure a few hours after the 11th clue in the 12-clue contest was released.
The other four hunters had teamed up with Wallgren an hour or two before he found the 2-inch plastic medallion in Tony Schmidt Regional Park in Arden Hills.
What Wallgren and three of the other four hunters didn’t know, they have said, was that co-hunter Alex Valen had days before located the yet-to-be posted Clue No. 9 on the Pioneer Press website and shared it with others.
The newspaper does not know whether he was the only person who was able to access the clue. But because Valen and the three other hunters had been searching together before Wallgren’s find, the paper decided to remove all four from the finders list.
The song version of the clue had been placed on a TwinCities.com server but had not been published on the website. Valen was able to access it by entering the correct, unpublished Internet address for the song.
Two days after Valen and the rest of the winners had been introduced at a news conference, he admitted that he had accessed the clue early.
The four co-hunters had provided a registered Winter Carnival button, worth an extra $5,000 in prize money. That sum has been rescinded.
“Today’s action was to maintain the integrity of the treasure hunt for the sake of the legions of hunters to whom this community tradition means so much. We regret that today’s action was required,” said Lori Swanson, director of marketing for the Pioneer Press.
The newspaper said it still reserves the right to ban some of the co-hunters from future treasure hunts, which are held in conjunction with the St. Paul Winter Carnival.
John Brewer can be reached at 651-228-2093.
Copyright 2012 Pioneer Press.
